Thanks for the feedback regarding the latest release. We are working hard to implement changes to continue to improve the community.

While we plan to tackle team debates in the future, we will be rolling out the quick debates first to provide the community with a new debate format in the interim.

Problem: The standard debates on DDO enable only two members of the community to participate, and we'd like to offer a solution that enables multiple members to engage.

Quick Debates are similar to debates.juggle.com in which hundreds of debates covering a variety of topics are covered. There are several advantages to adding this particular component to the DDO community.

1. Quick Debates enable more than two members of the community to participate in the debate. Anyone in the community can pick a side and offer up arguments in support of it.

2. Quick Debates will stand alone from the standard debates on DDO – with everything from scoring and points tracked separately.

3. Much like the standard debates on DDO, the Quick Debates will have 3 periods with specific rules governing each.

Period 1 – Argument Period. In this round, you will choose a side and offer up an argument to support your stance. To encourage original thought, other members of the DDO community will not be able to view your argument until this period has closed. Current stats regarding the number of arguments on each side will be visible.

Period 2 – Review/Open Comments. In this period, community members can view all arguments posted in first period (no additional arguments can be posted). Users can offer up rebuttals for each argument and/or point out holes in the argument.

Period 3 - Voting. The goal is to reward the user with the best, most sound argument. To combat "vote bombing", voters will provide 2 votes (1 on each side based on the best argument and not necessarily their specific stance). A community member from each side will receive an award for having the soundest argument – the best debater.

4. We also hope to integrate quick debates with Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels in which winners are announced, badges awarded and more (and you can brag to your friends).

In the near future we will be presenting screen shots of the Quick Debates design. As always, we welcome and encourage your feedback. We are definitely open to suggestions on how this functionality will work in the DDO community. Please keep suggestions constructive and remain open minded.

Fantastique. This is going to be either a thing to hammer out forum fights or a medium between 40,000 character regular debates and the very quick and brief nature of the forums. Although there are things that could be better, anything that will increase the quality of the site are welcomed.

This looks to be amazing, though one question on it. As we know, it is difficult to get people to read debates that only have 8 arguments (4 for each side). If this is "too popular" than it risks having dozens of arguments for each side. How do we get people to read them all to vote accurately? And what would determine which arguments are presented first (I'd bet that most people will only read the first few and only vote amoung those, rather than reading all).

At 6/22/2012 3:03:02 PM, JuliaD wrote:Thanks for the feedback regarding the latest release. We are working hard to implement changes to continue to improve the community.

While we plan to tackle team debates in the future, we will be rolling out the quick debates first to provide the community with a new debate format in the interim.

Problem: The standard debates on DDO enable only two members of the community to participate, and we'd like to offer a solution that enables multiple members to engage.

Quick Debates are similar to debates.juggle.com in which hundreds of debates covering a variety of topics are covered. There are several advantages to adding this particular component to the DDO community.

1. Quick Debates enable more than two members of the community to participate in the debate. Anyone in the community can pick a side and offer up arguments in support of it.

2. Quick Debates will stand alone from the standard debates on DDO – with everything from scoring and points tracked separately.

3. Much like the standard debates on DDO, the Quick Debates will have 3 periods with specific rules governing each.

Period 1 – Argument Period. In this round, you will choose a side and offer up an argument to support your stance. To encourage original thought, other members of the DDO community will not be able to view your argument until this period has closed. Current stats regarding the number of arguments on each side will be visible.

Period 2 – Review/Open Comments. In this period, community members can view all arguments posted in first period (no additional arguments can be posted). Users can offer up rebuttals for each argument and/or point out holes in the argument.

Period 3 - Voting. The goal is to reward the user with the best, most sound argument. To combat "vote bombing", voters will provide 2 votes (1 on each side based on the best argument and not necessarily their specific stance). A community member from each side will receive an award for having the soundest argument – the best debater.

4. We also hope to integrate quick debates with Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels in which winners are announced, badges awarded and more (and you can brag to your friends).

In the near future we will be presenting screen shots of the Quick Debates design. As always, we welcome and encourage your feedback. We are definitely open to suggestions on how this functionality will work in the DDO community. Please keep suggestions constructive and remain open minded.

I'll be perfectly honest, and critical as possible, and say this is a step in the wrong direction.

Looking at the market, how many proper, "professional" (I use the term loosely, but still) debating sites are there? Sites that can accomodate debating, LD debating, and plausibly BP and other debates? This is basically it: it dominates the segment. But the other sectors of the "post a comment and vote" kind of debating is so saturated for such a niche that it seems pointless - and it is a millimetre away from just being a forum led site, rather than debate led site.

The team debating and such is what I am looking to moreso than other issues. And I'd also enjoy a "restriction" for those who can use the quick debate so you can have, say, people with 5 proper debates+ before using it.

Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to be Gay, he'll positively influence the GDP.

Oh, and I forgot to say: the majority of this site's users are people who just come on for a week or two, post a pointlessly bad argument, then leave. This seems to be a way of attracting new users, which is fine, but not retaining them, which is a million times more important as of now.

Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to be Gay, he'll positively influence the GDP.

"Yes, God exists and, if you do not believe now, you will after you are dead. I believe that God exists. No matter how much scientists can explain about the universe, their "history" seems to stop at the Big Bang. They can not say for certain why the Big Bang happened. There are too many people that believe in some kind of higher power for the whole species to be wrong, and there not being something larger than us..."

I am not saying God is a God-of-the-gaps, but this is such a clear application of it that it is ludicrous.

"I'm pretty sure The most exciting thing is whatever you write on this page, whatever you believe or not... He does believe in you..."

Does this need comment?

"I believe the existence of God is evident in creation, and in the inherent good found in people. I believe that, when we consider the complexity of living things, the existence of a creator is made evident. I fully doubt that creation has happened by chance. While it is true that evil forces are at work and bad things happen, the good in people is made evident in their response to such situations. I believe the positive, caring response is evidence that a good God does exist and is at work in his people."

I can just about scavenge out a moral argument, or transcendental argument, from this. Maybe. Oh, and the teleological argument, which is basically rebutted by a "I don't believe that" due to the lack of strength of the argument.

"It is absolutely inane to say that everything came from nothing, rather than from God."

Don't care enough to go much further in that comment: It's really not much relevance to call someone insane, then bugger off.

"I do believe that a higher power or God does exist due to the existence of things like love and beauty. It is difficult, even if it is logical, to believe that there is no God."

A very crude transcendental argument, but is closer to the non-deity of Plato's demiurge than God.

"YES!!! GOD DOES EXIST! If God didn't exist we wouldn't be here. Somthing can't come from nothing. We have proof right under our nose. It's the HOLY BIBLE."

Cool Beans.

"The idea that something came from nothing is ludicrous."

Cool beans.

I'd continue, with the atheist side, but the majority of them are just the same thing reiterated over and over, rather than new arguments. It'd be better as something else altogether.

Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to be Gay, he'll positively influence the GDP.

"Yes, God exists and, if you do not believe now, you will after you are dead. I believe that God exists. No matter how much scientists can explain about the universe, their "history" seems to stop at the Big Bang. They can not say for certain why the Big Bang happened. There are too many people that believe in some kind of higher power for the whole species to be wrong, and there not being something larger than us..."

I am not saying God is a God-of-the-gaps, but this is such a clear application of it that it is ludicrous.

"I'm pretty sure The most exciting thing is whatever you write on this page, whatever you believe or not... He does believe in you..."

Does this need comment?

"I believe the existence of God is evident in creation, and in the inherent good found in people. I believe that, when we consider the complexity of living things, the existence of a creator is made evident. I fully doubt that creation has happened by chance. While it is true that evil forces are at work and bad things happen, the good in people is made evident in their response to such situations. I believe the positive, caring response is evidence that a good God does exist and is at work in his people."

I can just about scavenge out a moral argument, or transcendental argument, from this. Maybe. Oh, and the teleological argument, which is basically rebutted by a "I don't believe that" due to the lack of strength of the argument.

"It is absolutely inane to say that everything came from nothing, rather than from God."

Don't care enough to go much further in that comment: It's really not much relevance to call someone insane, then bugger off.

"I do believe that a higher power or God does exist due to the existence of things like love and beauty. It is difficult, even if it is logical, to believe that there is no God."

A very crude transcendental argument, but is closer to the non-deity of Plato's demiurge than God.

"YES!!! GOD DOES EXIST! If God didn't exist we wouldn't be here. Somthing can't come from nothing. We have proof right under our nose. It's the HOLY BIBLE."

Cool Beans.

"The idea that something came from nothing is ludicrous."

Cool beans.

I'd continue, with the atheist side, but the majority of them are just the same thing reiterated over and over, rather than new arguments. It'd be better as something else altogether.

I believe that it would yield a different result here. While there are a lot of people that engage in the oh so common "us vs them" political mentality, there are also quite a few that can look beyond that.

The one possible sticking place is the integration with social networking sites. For most people, this is great; I understand quite a few of them already share facebook pages and that sort of thing. I just ask that, for those of us without profiles on facebook/twitter/or whatever, that the service still be usable without a login from one of those sites.

At 6/22/2012 4:07:06 PM, Ore_Ele wrote:This looks to be amazing, though one question on it. As we know, it is difficult to get people to read debates that only have 8 arguments (4 for each side). If this is "too popular" than it risks having dozens of arguments for each side. How do we get people to read them all to vote accurately? And what would determine which arguments are presented first (I'd bet that most people will only read the first few and only vote amoung those, rather than reading all).

I agree, there seem to be some challenges with this idea. They seem to have a platform ready, so I guess we'll just wait and see. I have to say, I'm not too crazy about this idea. I prefer the competitive and personal nature of a one on one debate. Each debater knows what they have to refute to win, and the boxing style back and fourths can get very interesting. This sounds like each debater will be striving to provide the "best arguments", so in other words the debater who most people agree with wins.